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So... the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra is in for review. With 108MP giant main sensor and 9-to-1 oversampling. Sound familiar? And then there's the use of PureView-like smart cropping to provide zoom on both the main and telephoto systems. Loads of Lumia similarities, even if the tech is much faster now, and I couldn't decide which Lumia to do the comparison against. So I picked both of them, the 1020 and 950. And threw in the champion iPhone 11 Pro for good measure!

Note the sub-title of this feature, mind you. With such stellar imaging candidates, there's zero point in doing sunny scenes or well-lit arenas. They can all cope just fine. What's needed are tough lighting conditions and tough zoom subjects. The idea being that if the phone cameras can cope with these examples, then they can cope with anything else you throw at them.

As to why I'm including a Lumia from 2013 and one from 2015 into the mix with current day flagships, it's because these were classic 'PureView' Lumias and benchmarks that most readers will be familiar with. As to what I expect from all this - I think the Galaxy S20 Ultra will win out overall because of my using multiple zoom test cases, and zoom is what it does best. I think the iPhone 11 Pro will be shortly behind, with its beautifully balanced cameras, including a real telephoto. With the two Lumias trailing, though not by the margin you'd expect from the age differences.

Before getting going, note the raw imaging specs of the four contenders:

With the S20 Ultra being the new device here, plus also having some PureView-esque features, it's worth noting a few things:

The main 108MP sensor is nona-binned, i.e. 9 pixels averaged to one, reducing noise and uncertainty. It's less sophisticated than the original Nokia PureView vision, but the effect will be along similar lines.

Zoom up to 3.9x is handled by this main sensor, in lossless PureView fashion up to about 3x and then with a little software after that.

Zoom at 4x is handled by the periscope telephoto lens and then losslessly with PureView smart cropping into the 48MP sensor up to 5x.

Zoom after 5x becomes 'hybrid' in that zoom is part optical, part smart cropping, and part software interpolation. And part with extra data from the centre of the main 108MP lens, it seems (I could notice a slight difference). Samsung claims that 10x zoom is essentially lossless, but that's not really true. But 10x results are certainly useable. Just don't put too much store in the 30x and 100x zoom claims!

On with my tests then. Looking, as usual, at the pixel level, with 1:1 crops, so that we can see what's going on in terms of sensor and algorithm quality.

Test 1: UK gloom

No, not gloom over the Coronavirus, but gloom in terms of weather. No sun was available, setting the tone for a challenging set of tests for these camera phones. Here's the overall shot:

And now here are central 1:1 crops from, in order, the Lumia 1020, the Lumia 950, (and possibly on a second row of two if you're viewing this on a desktop) the iPhone 11 Pro, and the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra. Click any of the device names to download the original JPG (or HEIC) file, should you wish to do your own analysis:

Of the four crops, the Lumia 1020 photo looks by far to be the most natural, the one which could amost be a view through a window into the real world. The others have varying degrees of extra sharpening. Then again, the 1020 has lower output resolution and so some details are lost, with the 950 producing the most solid colours and textures, albeit with a yellowing cast, as usual. While I'd put the iPhone and S20 Ultra's shots are roughly equivalent, in terms of sharpening, saturation, etc.

Test 2: Same gloom, zoomed

With max 2.5x zoom on the 1020, roughly 2x on the 950, 2x telephoto on the iPhone 11 Pro, and the default 5x on the Galaxy S20 Ultra. Here are central 1:1 crops from the zoomed shots of the Lumia 1020, the Lumia 950, the iPhone 11 Pro, and the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra. Click any of the device names to download the original JPG (or HEIC) file, should you wish to do your own analysis:

With the challenging light and zoom requirement, differences are starting to emerge. The S20 Ultra is clearly best here, with clear detail - and larger, thanks to the genuine 5x zoom - look at the white and yellow flowers, the only camera phone to resolve these properly. The iPhone 11 Pro follows, though with some colour inaccuracies and, of course, a much lower zoom factor. While the Lumia 950 shows how rubbish it is at zooming once again, the zoom algorithms aren't at all good. The Lumia 1020 does much better, with natural results again, despite the loss of PureView oversampling (because the smart cropping is 'all the way in'), but it does make a complete mess of the exposure on the white flowers and has generally poor dynamic range.

Test 3: Evening landscape

Deep dusk then, by a picturesque (and floodlit) church. Always a favourite subject. Here are central 1:1 crops from the Lumia 1020, the Lumia 950, the iPhone 11 Pro, and the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra. Click any of the device names to download the original JPG (or HEIC) file, should you wish to do your own analysis:

Now here we have a battle - all the shots are pretty darned good - do look at the full versions if you have the time. Each manages to keep noise right down and would have won any camera shootout from the last decade. Having said that, the slight extra resolution of the newer devices, together with more processing power does mean that more texture is visible, for example on the stonework, as you can verify above.

Very impressive from the newer devices anyway, especially the S20 Ultra and its nona-binning.

Test 4: Dusk, zoomed!

Again using appropriate zoom, here are central 1:1 crops from the zoomed shots of the Lumia 1020, the Lumia 950, the iPhone 11 Pro, and the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra. Click any of the device names to download the original JPG (or HEIC) file, should you wish to do your own analysis:

There are multiple factors here - with the newer phones, and especially the S20 Ultra producing dramatically more detail (more zoom) and greater clarity. The Lumia 950, in particular, is rather horrible in its capture - again, zoom and the 950 never go together well. The Lumia 1020's shot is OK for a few years ago, but with no PureView oversampling in play when zoomed, the resulting shot lacks purity and clarity compared to the main contenders here.

However, although the S20 Ultra has a zoom and detail advantage over the iPhone 11 Pro, it also gets the colours wrong, with the lit stonework here appearing almost pink, while the iPhone nails the scene in every way. So it all evens out. A score draw!

It's amazing how the cutting edge in low light shots from phones has changed over the years. The Lumia 1020 was the champion of the world for several years, then the Lumia 950 and, while the latter is still looking pretty pure and with commendable detail, the iPhone 11 Pro's automatic use of 'night mode' frame combination produces an astonishingly clear photo. And remember that everything on this page is handheld, however low the light. You can even read the sign besides the door: 'THE OLD POLICE HOUSE'.

The new S20 Ultra does pretty well, especially with a mere 1/25s exposure, though again there's a bit of a red tinge - I've a feeling that software updates are needed to fix little things like this.

Test 6: Signs again, zoomed!

It's zoom time again - got to exercise that S20 Ultra!! Here are central 1:1 crops from the zoomed shots of the Lumia 1020, the Lumia 950, the iPhone 11 Pro, and the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra. Click any of the device names to download the original JPG (or HEIC) file, should you wish to do your own analysis:

The Lumias do pretty well, though the 1020 has no oversampling when zoomed, so there's a certain err.... uncertainness to its pixels. The 950 does better, thanks to a much larger aperture and a bit of sharpening. The iPhone 11 Pro again wins out, this time without needing go to a 'Night' mode (even an automatic one), so this is a single exposure. With some noise, but hey, look at the detail being resolved and useable.

The S20 Ultra's periscope zoom system does trip up here, and it's not the lens's fault (I shot this one at 4x zoom, so using the optics and the full 48MP zoom sensor) - it's the software generating artefacts from noise, rather than recognising it as such as dealing with it properly. Again, an update will no doubt improve this, eh, Samsung?

Test 7: Crazy dark

This was just an impulsive shot, a close-up of a small (old) photo of my dad in his youth. The photo is laid on my bed at night, with just a street lamp shining through curtains to add any visibility whatsoever. With my naked - and night-adjusted - eyes (don't worry, the rest of me was clothed!), I couldn't see any details on the photo at all! Here's the overall shot, made MUCH lighter by the Lumia 950 than the room really was:

As I say, a crazy test and I'm not surprised that two of my test phones gave up the ghost! The Lumia 1020 just couldn't get the focus and exposure right - in the end I dropped to manual mode just to get the dim image above. In fairness, what it produced was about what my eyes could see, so it accurately reflected reality!

The Lumia 950 did its usual trick of seeing in the dark and worked wonder here, without the pixel-level noise being too silly. The iPhone 11 Pro does its multi-second auto night mode trick and as a result the photo almost looks like it was taken in the daytime, with just some noise to give the game away. Impressive, though.

While the S20 Ultra gave up. I took about half a dozen shots, trying to get it to focus and expose properly and just couldn't get there. In fairness, again, the S20 Ultra's lens is larger than even the 1020's and so there are physics limits to how close it can focus. Plus I didn't have time to go into Pro mode and play with manual focussing, since the sun was about to rise and ruin the light comparison.

So I'm going to be kind in the scoring. The test wasn't very applicable in real world snaps!

Verdict

Adding up the scores, we get:

Apple iPhone 11 Pro: 61 pts

Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra: 58 pts

Lumia 950: 51 pts

Lumia 1020: 50 pts

Which didn't quite go as I expected, then. The iPhone's superbly balanced main and telephoto cameras, allied to restrained processing, and an incredible auto-night mode, add up to a win over the newer S20 Ultra, even though zoom was tested multiple times above. The Samsung clearly needs work on its algorithms, in terms of noise reduction and colour balance, though at least the terrible over-sharpening seen in my S20 comparison isn't evident here - probably because that's mainly used in bright light.

The Lumia 950 and 1020 have been vying for wins ever since the start in 2015, so I'm not surprised these came out about equal. Though do note that the 1020 is currently crippled in that it can only be viable under Windows 10 Mobile, where the camera launch delay is massive. Sadly.

As yet further evidence that the iPhone 11 Pro has been the cream of the imaging crop for the last six months, it's also what I've been using personally most of the time. And in terms of imaging it's utterly rock solid and hard to take a bad photo with. In fact, I'd say it's impossible. So if you came here looking for Lumia replacements then the S20 Ultra isn't quite there yet, the standard S20 is too compromised, but the 11 Pro (and Pro Max) is ready for use and a superb snapper.